e days ago had not set eyes on them. For humanity's
sake, he had said. Well!

But she thought of the mumbling lips, the look of anguish in the poor
eyes, went on, and rang the bell.

Mrs Jones was in, of course. She was sitting over the dining-room fire,
writing a letter. A short, rather fat, rather dumpy woman, with plain
features, an ominous flush on her sallow cheeks, iron-grey hair, and
very large, very luminous dark eyes.

"How very good of you to call so soon!" she said, and got up to
welcome, rather effusively, the rich woman who had come to be a
parishioner. "Let your master know at once that Mrs Macmichel is here,
Mabel," she said to the servant, and gave Mabel a look which indicated
tea was to make its appearance with as little delay as possible. "Are
you walking or driving? Walking? Really? Now, would you rather sit near
the fire or the open window? It is the kind of day--isn't it?--when
either is agreeable."

She had a slightly nervous manner, or she was not quite at ease with
the strange caller. She altered the position of the chairs, rattled the
poker in the fire, pushed away the little table which held the writing
things.

"I was just writing to my son," she said, and smiled, as if sure of her
interest in the subject, at the woman, who, chill to the marrow with
the discomfort of her errand, had taken a chair by the side of the
fire. "I think I told you he is in the navy? He is commanding the
_Doughty_, the new destroyer. Going trips in her every day or so. I
suppose these destroyers are terrible-looking things? Ah! I have never
seen one, but I imagined so. What a comfort to me to know they are,
after all, so safe as Freddy tells me they are."

"Such a mild day for the time of year, isn't it? And such a pretty
stretch of road from the Court here!"

"We often say so!"

"And just the right length for a walk!"

"Exactly a mile and a quarter."

"Really?"

"Exactly! We always called it a mile; but the last time he was home on
leave Freddy measured it with his new cyclometer. 'Now, mother,' he
said, 'please to remember it's a mile and a quarter, and, don't let's
have any dispute about it in future?'"

"It's so nice to know--to an inch or two!"

"Well, Freddy has a very accurate mind. He can't bear anything slipshod
in the way of a statement. Now, you are sure, after your walk, you do
not feel the fire too much? Then move into this chair. You have really
taken the least comfortable in the room.